[1] Four personages of the name of Daniel appear in the Old
Testament: (1) the patriarch of Ezekiel (see above); (2) a son of
David (1 Chron. iii. 1); (3) a Levite contemporary with Ezra (Ezra
viii. 2; Neh. x. 6); (4) our Daniel.
[2] Ant. x. 10, 1.
[3] Chap, x., on the Prophets.
[4] Panarion, _adv._ Haeres. 55, 3.
[5] Prince, _Dan._ p. 26, n. 6.
[6] _Dan._ p. viii.
[7] The account in chap. ii. of the promotion of Daniel to be
governor of Babylon, as a reward for his correct interpretation of
Nebuchadrezzar's dream, is very probably an imitation of the story of
Joseph in Gen. xl-xli. The points of resemblance are very striking.
In both accounts, we have a young Hebrew raised by the favour of a
heathen king to great political prominence, owing to his
extraordinary God-given ability to interpret dreams. In both
versions, the heathen astrologers make the first attempt to solve the
difficulty, which results in failure, whereupon the pious Israelite,
being summoned to the royal presence, in both cases through the
friendly intervention of a court official, triumphantly explains the
mystery to the king's satisfaction (cf. Prince, _Dan._ p. 29).
[8] See Bevan, _Dan._ 28-40, on the Hebrew and Aramaic of Daniel.
[9] According to Lagarde, _Mitteilungen_, iv. 351 (1891); also Gott,
_Gelehrte Anzeigen_ (1891), 497-520.
[10] The latest connected Babylonian inscription is that of Antiochus
Soter (280-260 B.C.), but the language was probably spoken until
Hellenic times; cf. Gutbrod, _Zeitschr. fur Assyriol._ vi. 27.
[11] Prince, _Dan._ 12.
[12] Bertholdt, Dan. 15; Franz Delitzsch, in Herzog,
_Realencyklopadie_, 2nd ed., iii. 470.
[13] Bevan, _Dan._ 27 ff.; Prince, _Dan._ 13.
[14] For this whole discussion, see Prince, _Dan._ 15 ff.
[15] The investigations of Haug, Spiegel and Windischmann show that
this was a real Zoroastrian doctrine.
[16] Prince, _Dan._ 35-42.
[17] Certain tablets published by Strassmaier, bearing date
continuously from Nabonidus to Cyrus, show that neither Belshazzar
nor "Darius the Mede" could have had the title "king of Babylon." See
Driver, _Introduction_,[3] xxii.
[18] Prince, _Dan._ 44-56.
[19] Prince, _Dan._ 19-20, 140, 155, 179 ff.
[20] That "Messiah" or "Anointed One" was used of the High-Priest is
seen from Lev. x, 3, v. 16.
[21] Prince, _Dan._ 22-24.
DANIEL (DANIL), of Kiev, the earliest Russian travel-writer, and one of
the leading Russian travellers in the middle ages. He journeyed to Syria
and other parts of the Levant about 1106-1107. He was the _igumen_, or
abbot, of a monastery probably near Chernigov in Little Russia: some
identify him with one Daniel, bishop of Suriev (fl. 1115-1122). He
visited Palestine in the reign of Baldwin I., Latin king of Jerusalem
(1100-1118), and apparently soon after the crusading capture of Acre
(1104); he claims to have accompanied Baldwin, who treated him with
marked friendliness, on an expedition against Damascus (c. 1107). Though
Daniel's narrative, beginning (as it practically ends) at
Constantinople, omits some of the most interesting sections of his
journey, his work has considerable value. His picture of the Holy Land
preserves a record of conditions (such as the Saracen raiding almost up
to the walls of Christian Jerusalem, and the friendly relations
subsisting between Roman and Eastern churches in Syria) peculiarly
characteristic of the time; his account of Jerusalem itself is
remarkably clear, minute and accurate; his three excursions--to the Dead
Sea and Lower Jordan (which last he compares to a river of Little
Russia, the Snov), to Bethlehem and Hebron, and towards Damascus--gave
him an exceptional knowledge of certain regions. In spite of some
extraordinary blunders in topography and history, his observant and
detailed record, marked by evident good faith, is among the most
valuable of medieval documents relating to Palestine: it is also
important in the history of the Russian language, and in the study of
ritual and liturgy (from its description of the Easter services in
Jerusalem, the Descent of the Holy Fire, &c.). Several Russian friends
and companions, from Kiev and Old Novgorod, are recorded by Daniel as
present with him at the Easter Eve "miracle," in the church of the Holy
Sepulchre.
There are seventy-six MSS. of Daniel's Narrative, of which only five
are anterior to A.D. 1500; the oldest is of 1475 (St Petersburg,
Library of Ecclesiastical History 9/1086). Three editions exist, of
which I. P. Sakharov's (St Petersburg, 1849) is perhaps the best known
(in _Narratives of the Russian People_, vol. ii. bk. viii. pp. 1-45).
See also the French version in _Itineraires russes en orient_, ed M^e
B. de Khitrovo (Geneva, 1889) (_Societe de l'orient latin_); and the
account of Daniel in C. R. Beazley, _Dawn of Modern Geography_, ii.
155-174. (C. R. B.)
DANIEL, GABRIEL (1649-1728), French Jesuit historian, was born at Rouen
on the 8th of February 1649. He was educated by the Jesuits, entered the
order at the age of eighteen, and became superior at Paris. He is best
known by his _Histoire de France depuis l'etablissement de la monarchie
francaise_ (first complete edition, 1713), which was republished in
1720, 1721, 1725, 1742, and (the last edition, with notes by Father
Griffet) 1755-1760. Daniel published an abridgment in 1724 (English
trans., 1726), and another abridgment was published by Dorival in 1751.
Though full of prejudices which affect his accuracy, Daniel had the
advantage of consulting valuable original sources. His _Histoire de la
milice francaise_, &c. (1721) is superior to his _Histoire de France_,
and may still be consulted with advantage. Daniel also wrote a by no
means successful reply to Pascal's _Provincial Letters_, entitled
_Entretiens de Cleanthe et d'Eudoxe sur les lettres provinciales_
(1694); two treatises on the Cartesian theory as to the intelligence of
the lower animals, and other works.
See Sommervogel, _Bibliotheque de la Compagnie de Jesus_, t. ii.
DANIEL, SAMUEL (1562-1619), English poet and historian, was the son of a
music-master, and was born near Taunton, in Somersetshire, in 1562.
Another son, John Daniel, was a musician, who held some offices at
court, and was the author of _Songs for the Lute, Viol and Voice_
(1606). In 1579 Samuel was admitted a commoner of Magdalen Hall, Oxford,
where he remained for about three years, and then gave himself up to the
unrestrained study of poetry and philosophy. The name of Samuel Daniel
is given as the servant of Lord Stafford, ambassador in France, in 1586,
and probably refers to the poet. He was first encouraged and, if we may
believe him, taught in verse, by the famous countess of Pembroke, whose
honour he was never weary of proclaiming. He had entered her household
as tutor to her son, William Herbert. His first known work, a
translation of Paulus Jovius, to which some original matter is appended,
was printed in 1585. His first known volume of verse is dated 1592; it
contains the cycle of sonnets to _Delia_ and the romance called _The
Complaint of Rosamond_. Twenty-seven of the sonnets had already been
printed at the end of Sir Philip Sidney's _Astrophel and Stella_ without
the author's consent. Several editions of _Delia_ appeared in 1592, and
they were very frequently reprinted during Daniel's lifetime. We learn
by internal evidence that Delia lived on the banks of Shakespeare's
river, the Avon, and that the sonnets to her were inspired by her memory
when the poet was in Italy. To an edition of _Delia_ and _Rosamond_, in
1594, was added the tragedy of _Cleopatra_, a severe study in the manner
of the ancients, in alternately rhyming heroic verse, diversified by
stiff choral interludes. _The First Four Books of the Civil Wars_, an
historical poem in _ottava rima_, appeared in 1595. The bibliography of
Daniel's works is attended with great difficulty, but as far as is known
it was not until 1599 that there was published a volume entitled
_Poetical Essays_, which contained, besides the "Civil Wars,"
"Musophilus," and "A letter from Octavia to Marcus Antonius," poems in
Daniel's finest and most mature manner. About this time he became tutor
to Anne Clifford, daughter of the countess of Cumberland. On the death
of Spenser, in the same year, Daniel received the somewhat vague office
of poet-laureate, which he seems, however, to have shortly resigned in
favour of Ben Jonson. Whether it was on this occasion is not known, but
about this time, and at the recommendation of his brother-in-law,
Giovanni Florio, he was taken into favour at court, and wrote a
_Panegyric Congratulatorie offered to the King at Burleigh Harrington in
Rutlandshire_, in _ottava rima_. In 1603 this poem was published, and in
many cases copies contained in addition his _Poetical Epistles_ to his
patrons and an elegant prose essay called _A Defence of Rime_
(originally printed in 1602) in answer to Thomas Campion's _Observations
on the Art of English Poesie_, in which it was contended that rhyme was
unsuited to the genius of the English language. In 1603, moreover,
Daniel was appointed master of the queen's revels. In this capacity he
brought out a series of masques and pastoral tragi-comedies,--of which
were printed _A Vision of the Twelve Goddesses_, in 1604; _The Queen's
Arcadia_, an adaptation of Guarini's _Pastor Fido_, in 1606; _Tethys
Festival or the Queenes Wake_, written on the occasion of Prince Henry's
becoming a Knight of the Bath, in 1610; and _Hymen's Triumph_, in honour
of Lord Roxburgh's marriage in 1615. Meanwhile had appeared, in 1605,
_Certain Small Poems_, with the tragedy of _Philotas_; the latter was a
study, in the same style as _Cleopatra_, written some five years
earlier. This drama brought its author into difficulties, as Philotas,
with whom he expressed some sympathy, was taken to represent Essex. In
1607, under the title of _Certaine small Workes heretofore divulged by
Samuel Daniel_, the poet issued a revised version of all his works
except _Delia_ and the _Civil Wars_. In 1609 the Civil Wars had been
completed in eight books. In 1612 Daniel published a prose _History of
England_, from the earliest times down to the end of the reign of Edward
III. This work afterwards continued, and published in 1617, was very
popular with Drayton's contemporaries. The section dealing with William
the Conqueror was published in 1692 as being the work of Sir Walter
Raleigh, apparently without sufficient grounds.
Daniel was made a gentleman-extraordinary and groom of the chamber to
Queen Anne, sinecure offices which offered no hindrance to an active
literary career. He was now acknowledged as one of the first writers of
the time. Shakespeare, Selden and Chapman are named among the few
intimates who were permitted to intrude upon the seclusion of a
garden-house in Old Street, St Luke's, where, Fuller tells us, he would
"lie hid for some months together, the more retiredly to enjoy the
company of the Muses, and then would appear in public to converse with
his friends." Late in life Daniel threw up his titular posts at court
and retired to a farm called "The Ridge," which he rented at Beckington,
near Devizes in Wiltshire. Here he died on the 14th of October 1619.
The poetical writings of Daniel are very numerous, but in spite of the
eulogies of all the best critics, they were long neglected. This is the
more singular since, during the 18th century, when so little Elizabethan
literature was read, Daniel retained his poetical prestige. In later
times Coleridge, Charles Lamb and others expended some of their most
genial criticisms on this poet. Of his multifarious works the sonnets
are now, perhaps, most read. They depart from the Italian sonnet form in
closing with a couplet, as is the case with most of the sonnets of
Surrey and Wyat, but they have a grace and tenderness all their own. Of
a higher order is _The Complaint of Rosamond_, a soliloquy in which the
ghost of the murdered woman appears and bewails her fate in stanzas of
exquisite pathos. Among the _Epistles to Distinguished Persons_ will be
found some of Daniel's noblest stanzas and most polished verse. The
epistle to Lucy, countess of Bedford, is remarkable among those as being
composed in genuine _terza rima_, till then not used in English. Daniel
was particularly fond of a four-lined stanza of solemn alternately
rhyming iambics, a form of verse distinctly misplaced in his dramas.
These, inspired it would seem by like attempts of the countess of
Pembroke's, are hard and frigid; his pastorals are far more pleasing;
and _Hymen's Triumph_ is perhaps the best of all his dramatic writing.
An extract from this masque is given in Lamb's _Dramatic Poets_, and it
was highly praised by Coleridge. In elegiac verse he always excelled,
but most of all in his touching address _To the Angel Spirit of the Most
Excellent Sir Philip Sidney_. We must not neglect to quote _Musophilus_
among the most characteristic writings of Daniel. It is a dialogue
between a courtier and a man of letters, and is a general defence of
learning, and in particular of poetic learning as an instrument in the
education of the perfect courtier or man of action. It is addressed to
Fulke Greville, and written, with much sententious melody, in a sort of
_terza rima_, or, more properly, _ottava rima_ with the couplet omitted.
Daniel was a great reformer in verse, and the introducer of several
valuable novelties. It may be broadly said of his style that it is full,
easy and stately, without being very animated or splendid. It attains a
high average of general excellence, and is content with level flights.
As a gnomic writer Daniel approaches Chapman, but is far more musical
and coherent. He is wanting in fire and passion, but he is preeminent in
scholarly grace and tender, mournful reverie.